Puffball

Description

A novel of urban deceit and rural passion, of doctors, witches, birth and death. 'Many people dream of country cottages. Liffey dreamed for many years, and saw her dream come true one hot Sunday afternoon, in Somerset, in September...A trap closed around her. The getting of the country cottage, not the wanting - that was the trap.' Richard and Liffey, a young married couple, follow their dream of moving out of London to a country cottage in the middle of Somerset. Richard continues to live and work in London, coming to stay with Liffey only on weekends. Pregnant Liffey feels burdened, hampered, at the mercy of these biological impulses beyond her control. Then there are the odd neighbours, the Tuckers, to reckon with, and the looming shadow of Bella, Richard's lover in London, threatening the rural idyll Liffey had for so long imagined. With wit and wisdom, Fay Weldon paints a funny and shocking picture of the conflicts within these seemingly conventional lives, conflicts which seem inevitably to stem from the eternal struggle between male and female.

After hard times and odd jobs as a lone parent, Fay Weldon became one of the top advertising copywriters of her generation. She moved to TV drama (writing the pilot episode of the iconic series Upstairs, Downstairs) then turned to novels - including the classic The Life and Loves of a She Devil and The Cloning of Joanna May. A sequel to her acclaimed Love and Inheritance trilogy, Before the War, was published in 2017. Fay's been made a CBE for services to literature and she's currently a Professor of Creative Writing at Bath Spa University.

'Wicked insight and amusement... the novel is unmistakeably Weldon' Financial Times 'Magical... she lays out the ingredients of her brew with a kind of manipulative glee, coolly moulding her characters and then neatly skewering them with mockery' Daily Mail 'Fay Weldon is a national treasure.' Sam Leith, Literary Review 'Weldon, like Dickens, can have her readers perched on the edge of their chairs with excitement by the end of the first page and hold them there in a state of riveted curiosity until the last words.' Evening Standard 'Weldon is a gifted tease of a writer.' Sunday Times 'Prolific and provocative, Fay Weldon shines brightest in the league table of British women novelists.' Time Out